The present invention relates to an antiknock additive for fuel compositions, primarily gasoline compositions.
The petroleum industry has long recognized a need for greater fuel economy and efficiency in the operation of gasoline powered spark ignition engines. In many instances, high compression ratios are desired in order to provide for superior engine performance under various driving conditions. In order to provide high performance in high compression engines without the risk of knock damage, fuels which will be used in such engines require a high octane number and good anti-knock characteristics.
While octane ratings of fuels can be improved by blending appropriate refining streams, the necessary additional refining and blending operations needed to obtain a fuel having the desired high octane rating are costly. In lieu of these various refining and blending processes the petroleum industry sometimes blends antiknock additives into fuels to increase the octane number of the fuel. For many refineries the use of anti-knock compounds is essential due to the lack of the refining and blending facilities to produce the high octane fuels.
Numerous compounds have been suggested as anti-knock additives for fuel compositions. The most successful of these anti-knock compounds additives are organo-lead compounds. The future use of organo-lead compounds as anti-knock additives is severely limited by recent legislation and may be completely prohibited in the future. It is desirable to develop other anti-knock additives as replacements for organo-lead compounds.
Numerous non-lead, anti-knock compounds have been suggested, such as rare earth beta-keto-enolate compounds, the lithium and sodium salts of organo-amino-cresols, various other organo metallic compounds, in particular organo-iron and organo-manganese compounds, such as iron pentacarbonyl and methyl cyclopentadienyl manganese tri-carbonyl. In addition, it is known to improve the anti-knock and octane properties of gasoline by blending alcohol therewith.
These anti-knock additives have their own associated problems when blended into fuels for use in internal combustion engines. The numerous organo-iron compounds increase the potential of wear in internal combustion engines and the organo-manganese compounds may effect the catalytic converters used on most cars today to reduce air pollution for exhaust emissions. Fuel compositions of gasoline and alcohol have many problems, including separation if water is admixed with the composition (due to the gasoline insolubility of many alcohols).
As can be seen, the petroleum industry has a need for gasoline additives, which, while having useful anti-knock properties, do not impart the known disadvantages of organo-metallic compounds and alcohol.